Chapter 104: Veronica’s outrageous request

"Hey, calm down, alright? I have no intention of taking your loot."

Jackson stepped out from behind the tree with both hands raised, making sure his movements were slow and deliberate. His expression remained relaxed, without the slightest hint of hostility.

Although he wasn’t afraid of Veronica, there was no reason to provoke her unnecessarily. He had already gathered the information he wanted, and the last thing he needed was to turn a perfectly avoidable encounter into another fight.

Unfortunately, Veronica didn’t seem interested in his explanation.

Her cold gaze swept over him from head to toe, carefully examining his appearance as though she were trying to uncover something hidden beneath the surface.

A moment later, her beautiful brows drew together slightly.

I can’t judge his strength.

The realization left Veronica somewhat puzzled.

She had always possessed a reasonably accurate understanding of the strength of her peers. Their cultivation, physical attributes, and the fluctuations of their magical power usually provided enough clues to estimate their combat abilities.

Yet Jackson was different.

Despite standing only a short distance away, she couldn’t accurately determine how strong he really was. His presence gave her little useful information, leaving her unable to make a reliable assessment.

It was the first time she had encountered someone around her own age whose strength she couldn’t properly gauge.

Still, the discovery didn’t make her afraid.

If anything, it made her more curious.

Jackson, meanwhile, had no intention of standing around while she inspected him. Seeing that she wasn’t immediately attacking, he slowly lowered his hands and turned to leave.

He had already obtained what he wanted from this encounter. There was no reason to remain here any longer.

"Stop."

Veronica’s cold voice rang out behind him.

"Who allowed you to leave?"

Jackson paused mid-step.

"Huh?"

Surprise flickered across his face before he slowly turned around.

Young lady, aren’t you being a little too fierce?

He couldn’t help complaining inwardly.

I’ve already given you enough face by explaining myself. Why are you so determined to make trouble?

Jackson had actually developed a reasonably good impression of Veronica during their previous interactions. She had given him a million spirit stones and provided him with Rank Three battle armor. More importantly, she had helped his younger sister, Aella.

Those favors weren’t things he intended to dismiss lightly.

If possible, he would prefer to avoid making an enemy of her.

But there was a difference between showing gratitude and allowing someone to walk all over him.

Jackson looked at Veronica, waiting to hear what she wanted.

Her cold voice soon broke the silence again.

"Although I can’t accurately judge your combat strength, there’s no way you’re stronger than me."

She raised her battle knife, its polished blade catching the light filtering through the canopy.

"Considering that you managed to approach without being detected, you must have some ability. But if you want to leave, hand over all your monster cores."

As she finished speaking, she angled the knife slightly.

The sharp edge reflected Jackson’s face with almost perfect clarity.

"..."

For a moment, the clearing fell silent.

Jackson stared at Veronica, wondering whether he had somehow misunderstood her words.

Then he repeated her demand slowly.

"All my monster cores?"

"Yes. All of them."

Veronica answered without hesitation, as though she had just requested something entirely reasonable.

Jackson drew a deep breath.

His expression remained calm, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

This woman has some nerve.

He had initially intended to leave peacefully, partly because of their previous interactions and partly because he had no particular desire to fight her. But she had just demanded every monster core he possessed, including the resources he had painstakingly gathered to strengthen his spiritual space.

That was no minor request.

Those cores represented his progress toward the Fourth Sequence. Handing them over would mean sacrificing a substantial portion of the resources he had worked so hard to obtain.

And Veronica expected him to surrender everything simply because she had asked?

Jackson slowly raised his eyes to meet hers.

His earlier patience was beginning to wear thin.

She’s really pushing it now.

Just as Jackson was wondering how to deal with Veronica, the gears in his mind suddenly began turning.

A moment later, his eyes widened as though he had spotted something astonishing. He abruptly pointed toward an ancient-looking tree nearby and shouted in an excited voice, "Look! Bitter Rain!"

"Bitter Rain? Where...?"

Veronica instinctively turned toward the direction he was pointing, her attention shifting away from Jackson for the briefest moment.

"Got you!"

A sharp whistle cut through the air.

A battle knife shot toward the back of Veronica’s neck, its blade glinting as it closed the distance with frightening speed.

However, just as the knife was about to strike, it suddenly stopped in midair.

The blade hung motionless behind her, frozen by an invisible force.

Veronica had activated her Pause Talent.

The moment she realized what had happened, her expression changed. She turned back toward Jackson, only to discover that he was already looking at her with an infuriatingly innocent expression.

Her face flushed bright red.

She had been tricked.

By such a cheap trick, no less.

Even Veronica couldn’t understand how she had fallen for something so obvious. She was well aware that Bitter Rain was a name worth paying attention to, but that didn’t excuse her reaction. She had allowed a single shout to distract her in the middle of a confrontation.

The embarrassment quickly turned into fury.

"Now you’ve done it...!"

She had barely finished speaking when another sharp whistle reached her ears.

A second knife came flying toward the back of her head.

Veronica’s eyes widened.

She immediately tried to activate her Pause Talent again, but the attack came at an awkward moment, while her attention was still fixed on the first knife. Before she could properly react, the second weapon struck her from behind.

Her body went limp.

Veronica fainted on the spot.

Jackson watched her collapse with a slight shake of his head.

Honestly, you brought this on yourself.

Using Twin Moon Shadow, he appeared beside her before she could hit the ground. He caught her and carefully lowered her to the forest floor, making sure she didn’t suffer any additional injuries from the fall.

He wasn’t particularly interested in hurting Veronica. He simply wanted to leave this place with his monster cores intact, and she had insisted on making that unnecessarily difficult.

Besides, he had learned something important from watching her earlier battle.

At any given moment, Veronica could only pause one target.

That limitation explained why she had been able to freeze one attack after another during her fight against the goblins without stopping everything around her. Her talent was powerful, but it required her to select a target, leaving other threats free to move.

Jackson had exploited precisely that weakness.

The first knife had drawn her attention and forced her to activate her talent. Once she committed to stopping it, the second knife had caught her off guard.

It was a simple trick, but an effective one.

Jackson glanced at the first knife, still suspended in midair, before looking back at the unconscious Veronica.

"Tch... And to think you wanted to take all my monster cores. Damn it."

He had tried to settle things peacefully, yet she had insisted on demanding everything he owned. Whatever happened afterward was hardly his fault.

At least, that was how he chose to see it.

After making sure Veronica was breathing normally, Jackson turned his attention to her belongings.

He carefully examined her storage space and soon discovered the number of monster cores she had collected during the assessment.

His eyes lit up.

One hundred and ten.

"Good. That saves me a lot of effort!"

Jackson couldn’t help feeling pleased.

He had been planning to hunt down hundreds of goblins himself, but that would take considerable time. Even with his improved physical attributes, tracking down the creatures, killing them, and collecting their cores would be a tedious process.

Now, Veronica had unexpectedly provided him with a substantial head start.

He felt no particular guilt about taking the loot.

After all, she had been the one who tried to rob him first. If she hadn’t demanded all his monster cores, none of this would have happened.

Jackson considered that a perfectly reasonable justification.

Once he had collected the cores, he carried Veronica to a sturdy tree and carefully placed her on a broad branch, positioning her securely against the trunk. He made sure she wouldn’t slip off while unconscious and chose a spot where passing goblins were unlikely to notice her easily.

He wasn’t going to leave her sprawled on the ground for some random monster to stumble across.

Whatever their disagreement, he had no intention of letting her die because of it.

With that taken care of, Jackson climbed down and swiftly disappeared into the forest.

There was no time to waste.

He had a considerable amount of work ahead of him.

As he moved between the trees, Jackson began calculating the resources he would need.

To reach the peak of the Third Sequence, he estimated that he would require at least a thousand monster cores, assuming the cores he collected continued providing the same benefits.

Veronica had supplied him with one hundred and ten.

That left approximately nine hundred more.

Jackson’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.

Nine hundred goblins.

For an ordinary student, such a goal would have been absurd. Even locating that many goblins in the vast forest would be a challenge, let alone killing them all before the assessment ended.

But Jackson wasn’t an ordinary student.

His Aura of Absolute Slaughter rewarded every kill by gradually improving his physical and spiritual attributes. Meanwhile, the Shadow Titan Nurturing Method allowed him to convert the cores he collected into resources for strengthening his spiritual boundary.

Every goblin represented another opportunity to grow stronger.

The more he killed, the greater his advantage would become.

Jackson’s pace quickened.

His figure darted through the forest like a whirlwind, weaving between trees as his spiritual force swept across the surrounding area in search of traces left by the goblins.

Scattered footprints, broken branches, and disturbed patches of soil all became potential clues. Rather than wandering aimlessly, he began searching for signs of a larger settlement.

If he could locate a goblin tribe, he wouldn’t need to waste time hunting isolated groups one by one.

He could go straight to the source.

And with nine hundred more monster cores on his list, Jackson had no intention of slowing down.